Raid on the Sun(52)

“That’s one bet I hope I collect.”



Sunlight from the first blush of dawn in the east crept across the Negev and broke through the barracks windows, eating away at the last shadows of nighttime lingering in the corners of the room. Just five o’clock, it was already warm in the desert as the first sounds of life stirred outside. In the distance, a truck engine turned, the gears grinding. Sunday, June 7, 1981, had dawned.

Raz lay on his back, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He had been awake for a while. None of the men had slept well. There was little talk as they stirred and fell into their morning routines—showering, shaving, pulling on their air force fatigues, and lacing up their boots. Again, the pilots had no appetite for the breakfast of rolls, fruit, and coffee set up outside the dormitory. A final briefing was scheduled for noon. Until then, they were on their own.

The adrenaline level was palpable in the room. The mess steward could feel it when he came to refill the coffee urn. The pilots spent until 1100 picking at the food and drinking tea or coffee, each man individually looking over the latest intelligence reports again, the maps, flight plans, and lists of code words. Everyone had long ago committed them to memory, but there was no room for error. And besides, it was something to do. They organized their notes and flight plans and navigation calculations, then clipped them to their kneeboards, the compact, hardbacked clipboards that fastened to their thighs so they could quickly flip to the pages they needed during flight. Strictly speaking, the kneeboards carried in the planes were frowned upon. Flight commanders warned that if forced to eject, the boards could become entangled in the seat harness or the ejection seat itself and rip their leg off. Some of the pilots had arranged special places in the cockpit to hang their boards so they could access them easily. This was also against regulations, since the boards, during an ejection, could become dangerous missiles in the updraft. But most pilots routinely ignored the regulation.

The pilots also spent time packing up their personal effects. These would be transported back to Ramat David later in the day. Hopefully, their wives would not be forced to retrieve them later.

They were served an early and large lunch. The men forced themselves to eat, even though no one was hungry. They knew they would need all the nutrients and energy they could get in the next seven or eight hours. At 1200 the men filed past the beefed-up security detachment outside the squadron room, the guards toting M-16s as they stood alert to any movement. The pilots carried their kneeboards and pencils to take notes. Inside, they took seats in the rows of armchair desks. Only those personnel directly involved in the raid were to be briefed. That included the F-16 pilots, the six F-15 support pilots, the two F-15 pilots and their radiomen who would form the communications link, and the briefers from Operations. The mission commanders were also there: General Saguy, IAF head General Ivry, and Avi Sella.

And standing next to Ivry was the chief of staff, Raful Eitan. The men were stunned. He was still sitting shivah. They had not expected him to be there. Eitan met their looks. He was unshaven, his eyes red-rimmed and ringed with dark circles, but his uniform was immaculate, his shirt laundered and starched. The briefing began and everyone took their seats. The weather report was first: clear with some cumulus clouds over the mountains to the east. The desert air would be hot, making for a bumpy ride in at only fifty feet off the ground.

“You new guys, take your airsick bags,” the briefer quipped a little stiffly.

The men tried to force a laugh. The tension in the room seemed to suck the energy out of everything. The briefer also repeated the intelligence that because it was Sunday, the foreign workers would all be at home.

“What if they’re not?” Shafir asked.

Ivry stirred in his chair.

“We didn’t ask them to be there,” he snapped. His eyes burned angrily. “We warned them and their leaders many times to go home. If they don’t want to, they are on the side of the terrorists, and whatever happens to them is their choice.”

Saguy, as head of army intelligence, went over the enlarged ground photos of Osirak and the al-Tuwaitha complex taken by Mossad, pointing out their target, the dome of the reactor. He reviewed the intelligence reports on the latest placements of AAA and SAM batteries as well as the SAM-3s and SAM-6s that fanned out all the way to Baghdad. Intelligence also reported a new brigade of SAM-6s at the site. Each brigade included five batteries, each battery armed with twelve telephone-pole-size missiles carrying 145-pound warheads. That added up to sixty surface-to-air missiles to fire at the Israelis. This was new information, and unwelcome at that. There were photos, too, of the present positions of the mobile ZSU 23-4 radar-guided antiaircraft guns, which looked like missile tanks.